#55 Communication During Transformation
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on Wed Jun 30 2021 17:00:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
with Darren W Pulsipher, Ann Madea,
In this episode, part two of two, Darren and guest Ann Madea, former CIO of HSBC, talk about communication during organizational transformation. When CIOs deploy solutions, they involve new processes and more than likely organizational change. In Ann’s most recent transformation program, they moved forward with cloud. Ann hired a head of cloud and implemented a multi cloud strategy with Google, AWS, and Azure. This major change caused concern, especially among those who had been working with the infrastructure for a long time.
Keywords
#communication #organizationalchange #people #process #hsbc #cio
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When CIOs deploy solutions, they involve new processes and more than likely organizational change. In Ann’s most recent transformation program, they moved forward with cloud. Ann hired a head of cloud and implemented a multi cloud strategy with Google, AWS, and Azure. This major change caused concern, especially among those who had been working with the infrastructure for a long time.
To alleviate anxiety and increase engagement, Ann strongly encouraged people to start getting certifications for cloud, Google, AWS, etc. She took her team on the road to have meetings with Google in New York where they got to see the energy, atmosphere, and collaboration that was happening there. As people began to get certified, excitement for the training and the transformation grew.
The new head of cloud would have “Google Days” where people came in and presented their use cases and how they were leveraging different products. They did the same with Amazon and Azure. This helped employees to understand the scope of what they could do, build excitement, and it enabled participation.
Ann’s key for CIO communication in the middle of a transformation is trust but verify. Three or four months into a transformation, Ann was told to focus on assessments in areas such as budgets, review teams, and reestablish relationships with the board and regulators. She decided to do a deeper dive, however, and found that there was really no plan that showed how the program was going to deliver. That began a reevaluation of the leadership team to get the program moving forward.
A CIO implementing a transformation must be willing to get their hands dirty. Trust but verify everything with multiple interviews and streams of information; one or two sources are not enough. Then, Ann believes it’s necessary to start communicating with transparency about the issues in order to get support from the people who are able to provide it.
One benefit of transparency is that the people who are giving you information, such as the programmers, trust that you are not going to use information against them. Ann’s team knows not to surprise her, and in turn, she does not surprise her bosses. For example, if there is an issue in the data center, she will tell them what she knows and update them as she learns more.
Employees want to know how they fit into the success of the program, not just that they have to code these five programs. One way Ann accomplished this was by holding many town halls. She also walked the floors and held an informal 30-minute update meeting every week where people could ask questions. Any time Ann held a big meeting where decisions were made, she would pull the whole team together, the business and technology sides, and explain the decisions and the impact. If people know there was a big meeting but are kept in the dark, the rumor mill starts.
With current teleworking, Ann says it is also important to briefly check in with individuals. Continuous check-ins lead to better relationships, and lessen anxiety about talking to superiors. Bosses need to understand what is motivating the teams, and what people are concerned about. They have families to feed, children in college, or maybe family members with medical issues.
Of course not everything can be discussed with everyone, such as staff reductions or promotions, for example, but Ann likes to call meetings of supervisors called “people meetings” where they can discuss these sensitive issues. The meetings can also help leaders understand their staff and what they are looking to do. It’s important to hear from the one-downs rather than only leaders, as they are more attuned to the day-to-day happenings.